A Rainbow Night
by Almost an Actress
Summary: Rainbow Dash is flying at night when she hears soft crying. What happens next will release her own pent-up sorrow.


Rainbow Dash was flying in the soft clouds of night. _As light as a feather, creating all sorts of stormy weather… Gray and then pink, all gone in the sunset, like a blink. _She shook her head. Not that she'd tell her friends this, but she'd been practicing poetry lately. Daring Do was a poet herself, it said in one of the books. _Daring Do and the Bard's Bane_, she believed it was called. She wasn't very good at it, yet. Some of her rhymes were weak and placed wrongly. _Oh, well. I'm no poet. I'm Dash, Rainbow Dash_, she thought. _Speed is my middle name! Or… wait. Would that be last name? _

The light blue Pegasus gave a small giggle, confused by her thought pattern. She turned over on her back, as if she were floating in a swimming pool. "The night sure is beautiful," she said aloud, the stars glimmering in her eyes.

Suddenly, from down below, her ears caught the sad sound of somepony crying softly. It wasn't a dramatic sob, but it was certainly heart-wrenching. Rainbow sighed. "I'd better check it out," she muttered to herself. Being the Element of Loyalty, she felt it her civic duty to help ponies who were sad. Maybe that was better suited to ponies like Pinkie and Fluttershy, but she was the only pony there at the moment.

Rainbow slowly coasted down to where she thought the sound was coming from. "Hello?" the slightly husky-voiced pony asked. "Are you okay?"

As expected, she heard the gasp of a pony trying to cover up her tears. "Er… fine, thank you. Who is speaking?"

"Luna?" Rainbow puzzled. She could tell by the tight formality of her words that it was the Princess herself.

"That is _Princess_ Luna," she sniffed. "And I asked who was speaking."

"It's me, Luna. Rainbow Dash."

There was a pause. "Rainbow… Dash? And who are you? I don't believe I know you."

Normally Rainbow would've snarled, "You've never heard of me?!" Now she didn't though. She kept quiet and walked over to the sobbing princess. "I was the pony electrocuting everypony on Nightmare Night," she explained.

A light came into Luna's eyes. "Ah… I remember you. You were the troublesome mare I electrocuted at the end of the night."

Rainbow forced out a laugh. Her backside had stung for months after! She sighed. "What's wrong, Princess?"

"It's… it is nothing. I'd rather not say."

"You can tell me!" Rainbow Dash persisted. "It's okay. I'm the Element of Loyalty."

"I…" Luna wiped her eyes with a dainty hoof. "Tia and I are not friends!" she blurted. "Ever since I came back from the moon, everything has been different. Forced, somehow. It is as if she doesn't want me there."

_Tia?_ Rainbow Dash thought. _Wait… ever since she came back from the moon, forced relationship, not wanting Luna there. Celestia is Tia!_ She smothered a giggle.

"You find my sorrow funny?!" Luna cried.

"No!" Rainbow cried, still giggling. "It's just that Tia is a funny nickname." She was laughing now. "Tia." She guffawed like she'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.

Luna looked confused, but settled down. "Oh…" She gave a small chuckle.

Rainbow calmed down. "It's okay, Princess." She put a foreleg around the sullen alicorn. "Sometimes sisters don't along."

"What would you know of this?" Luna asked tightly, shrugging Dash off.

Rainbow's eyes hardened and she crossed her forelegs. "I know more than you'd think!"

"Oh?" Luna said challengingly.

"Yeah! I had a sister named Rainbow Shine!" She clapped her hooves over her mouth. She hadn't spoken of Rainbow Shine since… since… the accident.

"A name the same as your own?" Luna said flatly. "Charming."

"She was older than me," Rainbow Dash muttered. "My parents thought it would be cute to call us Rain and Bow."

"Ahh. _Was_ older?" Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Was," Dash confirmed, hanging her head. Her rainbow mane hung down in her eyes, making her appear very sad.

Luna's eyes softened. "What has happened to this sister?"

"She… she died." Rainbow Dash clapped her hooves over her mouth for the second time. "I mean…" she stammered, trying not to cry. She wiped her tears away sloppily.

"'Tis okay, Rainbow Dash." Luna put a foreleg around the crying Pegasus. "We both have issues with our sisters, it appears."

Rainbow leaned into Luna's side. "Yeah. Luna?"

"Yes, Rainbow Dash?"

"How come you speak so formally?"

"A lot changes in one thousand years. Fashions, games, especially speech patterns." She chuckled.

Rainbow wrapped her own foreleg around Luna. "Ah. Well, I came here to comfort you. Not for you to comfort me."

"Well, 'tis alright. It takes my mind off of the issues I am coping with." Luna extracted her foreleg and flew into the sky. "Let us fly together, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow grinned, shooting straight up from the ground. She had learned this trick when she was just a filly. _Rainbow Shine taught it to me… _she thought. Shaking her head to rid her thoughts of her long-dead sister, she flew up next to Luna. "Where we goin'?"

"To the stars and back!" Luna cried with a smile. She flew up higher and higher with Rainbow Dash following her. Finally, when they were dizzyingly high, Rainbow had an idea.

"Wanna see something awesome?" she asked.

"Aw… some?" Luna puzzled. "Is that a bad thing?"

Dash laughed. "Nah. It's the very best. Stay here!" She rocketed straight down, picking up speed.

Luna watched with interest as her newfound friend got smaller and smaller. Suddenly, a great rainbow explosion rocked the earth. Luna's jaw hung open.

Rainbow flew back up to her, sweating and panting. "I…" she said in a heaving breath. "That was hard."

Luna squealed with delight. "Awesome!" she crowed.

Rainbow took the Princess's hoof in her own as they flew home.


End file.
